


changing positions

by youcouldmakealife



Series: if all is enough [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-21 02:32:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2451407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ulf exhales. “You ever want to do this sober, you know where to find me,” he says, finally.</p><p>Rousseau laughs, humorless. “Good night, Larsson,” he says.  It’s a dismissal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	changing positions

It’s the kind of loss that sticks with you, that stings low. It doesn’t matter how many years Ulf plays, how many games, how many wins and losses: there are games that fundamentally suck. Sometimes because of a rivalry, or a weak opponent, or missed calls, but the worst kind is the one where your team just doesn’t deserve to win, doesn’t play to win, where there are no excuses you can make. There’s a dark, sulky atmosphere in the room after the third. Travis doesn’t even give them shit, which makes it worse, because it’s clear to all that he doesn’t think it’s worth bothering with them tonight. The media’s happy to descend on them instead.

It’s not a key game, it’s not a blowout, it’s not to a shitty team or to a rival, but the sour mood sticks to them, follows them from Quebecor Arena to the bus, from the bus to the hotel, follows Ulf to his room, where he stews with it. Marc would be overjoyed to take part in some Nordiques bashing, but he’s on the ice in Edmonton, and frankly the Nordiques earned every inch they got, that the Rangers ceded to them.

Ulf stews, but he knows how shitty a response that is, how much worse it will make the next morning, the next game, especially if it’s a loss. It’s snowing out, hard, the kind of storm that may ground them if they’re unlucky, and this is a city that would know them, jeer at them, if they peeked their heads out after a loss that mortifying. The hotel bar’s open, though, and Ulf could use a drink, a distraction, one not from a minibar, a baby sized bottle.

It’s mostly empty, which makes sense in the middle of the week, but he can see Rousseau at the bar, can tell it’s him just by the set of his shoulders, down to a crisp white shirt and a defeated posture. Ulf goes up to the bar, hesitates by Rousseau.

“Okay if I drink here?” he asks. He’s still got options. Going out’s a bust, but if you pour the mini-bottles into a glass it feels a little less like you’re a sixteen year old during a tournament abroad.

Rousseau flicks his eyes over at Ulf from where they’ve been trained on the west coast game; Golden Seals and Flames, from a quick glance. He shrugs after a minute, and Ulf sits in the stool beside him, orders a beer.

They drink mostly in silence through the third period, through the night’s highlights afterward, lowlights, play-by-play analysis, in French, of how much they suck. Ulf’s guessing, at least. Proximity hasn’t made him fluent in French, and Marc’s notified him of Rousseau’s similar ignorance in the bitchiest manner possible. But the clips are mortifying enough that he doesn’t need to speak the language to know what they’re saying.

For the first time, Ulf sees Rousseau drink. Not that he hasn’t seen him drink before, but he realized after Rousseau gestured to the bartender the second time that he’s only ever seen him linger on a single beer, nurse it from beginning to end of whatever he’s been dragged to. This time he’s not nursing his drink, knocks it back, whiskey and soda, as far as Ulf can tell, not that he’s asking.

“Shitty loss,” Ulf ventures, when the wrap-up ends, and Rousseau’s ordered yet another drink. They’re heading out tomorrow morning unless Rousseau knows something about the weather Ulf doesn’t, and it’s edging closer to two with every breath.

Rousseau snorts. “That’s one way to say it,” he says. “We fucked the dog.”

Ulf chokes on his beer.

“Haven’t heard that one?” Rousseau asks.

“First time for everything,” Ulf says, once he’s done coughing. “Including bestiality, I guess.”

Rousseau laughs, a short bark, and Ulf would be proud of himself for drawing one out of him, but Rousseau isn’t steady on his stool, and Ulf has no illusions about his ability to amuse Rousseau sober. It hangs out around nil.

“Probably time to head up,” Ulf says, just as Rousseau’s drink arrives. “Bill,” he says to the bartender, when he looks questioningly at the dregs of Ulf’s second beer.

Rousseau looks over at him, and Ulf’s used to Rousseau looking at him, he thought he was used to Rousseau looking at him, but this is something else, almost invasive, leaves Ulf feeling hot, uncomfortable.

“You’re not gonna do anything,” Rousseau observes.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ulf asks.

Rousseau looks at him like he’s stupid, which is fair enough. The meaning’s more than clear. And maybe Ulf would, a few drinks more, a few years back, wouldn’t care that Rousseau was flushed, loose with drink, or would consider that a bonus. Would ignore the fact that Rousseau had hooked his ankles in the bar stool around a half hour ago so he could keep his center of gravity.

“I’m not interested in being your drunken mistake,” Ulf says.

“No?” Rousseau asks. “Coulda fooled me.”

Ulf exhales. “You ever want to do this sober, you know where to find me,” he says, finally.

Rousseau laughs, humorless. “Good night, Larsson,” he says. It’s a dismissal.

Ulf slaps down a few bills on the table, doesn’t bother to check whether they’re American or Canadian. “If it costs more, dock my pay,” he says, feeling childish about it, but he needs to make his distance before he does something they’ll both regret.

Going to bed alone feels like cheating himself.

*

The next morning Rousseau looks pale, drawn, though Ulf doesn’t think anyone’s noticing but him.

Rousseau keeps looking at him. That’s obviously nothing new, but there’s a change now. Ulf catches his eye, and Rousseau averts his. That may not be new either, but the tenor’s different. Before, Rousseau averted his eyes because he was embarrassed. Now he looks ashamed.

*

The next bad loss is against Florida, and Ulf doesn't think that's just his bias. The Panthers win, obviously, which is frankly bad enough because Ulf knows first hand how rare that is, at least against a team like the Rangers, after years of being on the other side of it. But the Panthers win it decisively, and the Rangers, fresh off a four game winning streak, are all looking various levels of stunned in the aftermath.

It's a gorgeous night out, t-shirt weather for those used to New York winter, and it's not like Quebec City—they're not likely to meet a hostile crowd if they go out, or even one who knows who they are. Ulf knows the best places for that, for obliviousness and a decent drink, but frankly he's spent enough of his life in Sunrise, in Sunrise bars. He still wants a drink in a quiet place, because losing to the Panthers stings, but he's fine with opting for the hotel bar, to grab a beer, watch whatever sport they've got on TV, tuck in for an early night.

Rousseau's by the bar, watching a basketball game, when Ulf comes in, and Ulf pauses for a moment, but it isn't like Rousseau has dibs.

“What, you drink every time we lose?” Ulf asks in greeting, before sitting down beside him.

Rousseau startles, then turns to gives him a look. A Look, actually. Capital L Look.

“Embarrassing losses,” Ulf guesses. “Ones that make you look bad.”

Rousseau gives him another one, even more pointed.

“Ones that make us look bad,” Ulf decides.

Rousseau takes a sip of his drink.

“It’s a good fucking thing you’ve never coached the Panthers,” Ulf says. “You'd be a raging alcoholic.”

Rousseau doesn’t laugh, but that’s fine. Ulf didn’t expect him to.

Ulf hasn't asked if he can sit, but Rousseau's shown himself to be more than capable of letting Ulf know when he should fuck off, so he sticks around, orders himself a beer, watches the game in silence beside Rousseau. It's not exactly stimulating, but basketball's never been Ulf's sport, and decades in the U.S. hasn't changed his mind on that. Slowly won him over on football, but basketball's probably a lost cause. It's not like they're playing any of the Pacific games, though, and it's better than nothing, even though Ulf spends more time looking at Rousseau than the screen. At the way his sleeves have been rolled up, precise, to sit below his elbows, at the way his hair's slightly fallen out of his gelled neat style, so that he looks almost casual compared to the carefully put together picture he usually makes. At the way he clenches his hand slightly in a gesture Ulf recognizes first hand as trying to work through a muscle spasm.

“Why’d you quit?” Ulf asks, during a commercial break, the first words he's spoken since his apparently unfunny joke about the Panthers, other than his order to the bartender.

Rousseau’s younger than Ulf, was declining but still productive when he went out, at least in the eyes of everyone but Pens fans. When he retired he was still playing better than Ulf has ever played in his life, and Ulf would be bitter about it, but he’s more than aware of the limits of his capabilities.

“The fuck you care?” Rousseau asks, blunt, not looking away from the screen, like he can't tear his eyes away from a Viagra commercial.

“What was it?” Ulf asks. “Seriously. Your hand? Your back?”

“I wasn’t injured,” Rousseau says, finally looking over at him.

“Then--” Ulf starts.

“My mother was sick,” Rousseau says abruptly.

“I--is she okay now?” Ulf asks.

“She’s dead,” Rousseau says, flat, and when Ulf starts tripping on his tongue trying to backpedal, apologize, “Don’t.”

“I'm sorry,” Ulf says, finally. The game's back on, and Rousseau's turned back to it, body language blocking Ulf out so clearly Ulf's amazed he hasn't put of a force-field. “You want me to go?”

“I don't care,” Rousseau says, which is far from a ringing endorsement to stay, but Ulf remains through the game, finishes his beer in silence, caught.

“I shouldn't have asked,” he says, once he's gotten his bill. Paid for it without dramatics this time.

“It's on the internet,” Rousseau says. “It's not like you couldn't just look it up.”

That emphatically does not make Ulf feel better.

“Still,” Ulf says, levers himself up from the stool, drops a hand onto Rousseau's shoulder when he slightly overbalances. He swears he can feel every single muscle in Rousseau's body go tense. “Sorry,” he says, pulling his hand back. It seems like something he says a lot around Rousseau. Something he needs to say a lot around Rousseau, because something about him leads Ulf to uncharacteristic blunders, the previously uncommon urge to shove something in his mouth so he stops fucking talking. As self-conscious as the teenager who landed in Dallas without anything close to a support system, falling hard for the first person to show him any undue interest.

“We have an early flight,” Rousseau says.

“Yeah,” Ulf agrees. “I'm just going to—I'm going to go to bed.”

Rousseau looks over at him, eyes so dark in the low light they look black, serious, like always. “Sleep well,” he says.

“You too,” Ulf says, and leaves before he makes things worse.

*  
Now Ulf's the one feeling ashamed, and it's not a comfortable feeling, not one he's ever had the misfortune of facing too often. It's novel, and that's probably a good thing, but he doesn't know how to face it, what he's supposed to do with it.

Rousseau simply gives him a nod when Ulf passes him on the coach the next morning, and that's frankly more than he's ever given Ulf, so it shouldn't make him feel small. But it does, that's all he feels, and as much as he hates Marc's know-it-all bullshit, he wishes he'd listened to him from the start. Ulf's bad for idealists, and he doesn't think they're too good for him either.

They win at home. Once, then again, and it's enough to steady him out, the wins, his own bed, the leggy blonde who can't tell the Rangers from the Islanders, but absolutely schooled him on the New York Jets facts the instant he said something wrong, which was pretty early, admittedly. He is an enthusiastic but inept scholar of American football.

She leaves the next morning with one of his travel mugs and her number scrawled on a receipt left on his kitchen table, where it stays until he does some cleaning and tosses it. They take a short jaunt up to Boston, rack up another win, then return home for an away game that isn't an away game, travelling all the way to Brooklyn, where there are more Rangers fans in attendance than Islanders fans. 

They win that one too, no surprise considering the competition, their record against the Isles in recent years, and most of the guys pile out for one drink in a nearby bar before they all head back to the 'burbs. Beating the Islanders may not be novel, but it feels good, like they're determining exactly who NYC’s hometown team is, and always coming out on top.

Travis shows up along with his assistants a little later, because they've probably got their coaches pow wow first. “How they hell does he even find us?” Cassidy asks, half under his breath, and Garza looks unrepentant.

“Teacher's pet,” Ulf says, and Garza elbows him in the side.

“It's good for the team,” Garza says, and Ulf can't argue—the atmosphere in the locker room is fundamentally different than it was a year ago, lighter, and Travis installing himself as part of the group instead of some stern overseer has definitely contributed to that.

Ulf doesn't look over at where Travis is hanging out, where Rousseau's either lingering, or made himself scarce. He's been trying not to look at Rousseau at all, though that's easier said than done when he sees him daily, when he's always around. Ulf wants to look, and he's never been very good at denying himself what he wants. But he’s trying. He pays attention to Garza and Cassidy, who’ve both pulled out their phones and are having a mini-competition on who has the cuter daughter and have enlisted Ulf as judge.

So it's surprising when Rousseau finds him first, a presence slightly behind him, then, “Larsson,” just loud enough to catch his attention, startle him into turning around. Ulf disengages from the conversation instantly. No one will judge: coach is coach, even if it’s off-time, catching Garza giving him a sympathetic look, like he suspects Ulf is in trouble for something. And maybe he is. 

Rousseau tilts his head slightly, and Ulf extricates himself from the group, follows Rousseau to a quieter corner. “I’m sober,” Rousseau says simply.

Ulf frowns, confused, before he remembers his own words in Quebec. 

“That's a bad idea,” Ulf says, once he realizes what’s being said. Not that it hasn't been from the start. Not that it's done anything to stop him before now. “Do you even—why now?”

“Do you care?” Rousseau asks.

Ulf opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

“Are you coming?” Rousseau asks.

Ulf means to say something, something smart, something to nip this in the bud--even if it’s too late for that, even if it’s far too late for that--but when Rousseau turns on his heel, all Ulf can do is follow.


End file.
